A few years back I was seduced by big, glossy newspaper ads into shelling out almost $100. to see Cortez! "Dont't miss the dance sensation of the season" .... "astounding" ...sensational!!!!" I still carry the ticket stub in my wallet as constant reminder never to believe everything one reads in newspaper ads! Before the show even started I suspected trouble ahead - when the programme notes talk more about his high-fashion wordrobe, romatic liaisons with fashion models and rock-star status then his ability as a dancer, one begins to feel slightly apprehensive. As a performer he was everything I detest....pretentious, arrogant over-wheening! There had been so much hype in the ads about flamenco/fusion" or the blending of ballet/flamenco technique but the only ballet influence I saw were some mediocre pirouettes in fourth and a few psydo-ballet arm postions. The women in his company were lovely to look at and, for the most part entertaining, but after awhile they seemed just too "pretty". I don't know much about Flamenco but I suspect the last thing it aspires to be is pretty! By the time Cortez finally took to the stage for his big, climatic solo the audience was distinctly hostile. He sprang, he stampled, he snarled - we sat silent and sullen. It became increasingly obvious that we would not be let go until we gave him the ovation he believed he deserved. The man sitting behind me kept insisting to his companion that Cortez was either drunk of high on something - I don't know about that but to this day I don't know why I just didn't get up and walk out! Finally, finally it was over and then something remarkable happened. The musicians and other dancers wondered out on stage and the lead singer, a women of undetermined age, began to dance spontaneously. She was not pretty, she was not graceful...but she was so real after all the phoniness of the previous two hours. It almost redeemed the night - but $100. was too much for about 10 min. of enjoyment.

Noreen, thanks for this. I haven't seen his show, but I did see one in which he had a hand and I was not impressed. The calm and considerate Donald Hutera wrote the angriest review of his life about a Cortes performance.<P><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited June 15, 2002).]

FOR many, Joaquin Cortes is famous by association. Everyone knows that the Spanish flamenco dancer with the movie star good looks stepped out with supermodel Naomi Campbell, but for a growing worldwide audience Cortes is an icon in his own right.

Emma Thompson reportedly knelt at his feet in an "I’m not worthy" gesture, while Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci penned a poem in his honour.

Madonna is a fan, as is Jennifer Lopez (or J-Lo, or whatever it is she’s calling herself this week) who hired him for a television special and Cortes performed at last year’s Oscars. What is it about this Spanish stallion that inspires such adulation - and vitriol?

The dance world has produced few modern-day stars - household figures that the average passer-by could name. Darcey Bussell, Michael Flatley, the list is far from endless. But if media interest is anything to go by, Spain has found a bona fide dance star in Joaquín Cortés. From magazine features to an appearance on So Graham Norton (where Cortés brought new meaning to the word "bewildered"), he’s not only made a name for himself, but given flamenco a whole new kudos. A rags-to-riches success story, Cortés was born into a Cordoban gypsy family in 1969 - 20 years later he was dating Naomi Campbell and performing at the Academy Awards.

Halfway through self-styled pop-flamenco idol Joaquín Cortés's performance, the previously bone-dry dancer emerges from the wings and assumes his favourite crucifix position (a none-too-subtle reference to his status as a flamenco 'god') with soaking wet hair and a bare chest liberally smeared in baby oil. It is fake sweat, stage-managed to appear at the equally carefully manufactured apex of the show. And it is not the only act of fakery Naomi Campbell's ex-beau has up his flapping flamenco sleeves. This is flamenco with a swagger, with flashing, movie-star eyes and bright-white teeth, flamenco with a nudge and a wink and tightly-packed buns in spray-on black trousers.

WHAT has Scotland done to deserve Joaquín Cortés? Over the past couple of years we have also had a visit from the legendary Baryshnikov, not to mention Edinburgh regulars such as Mark Morris, Nederlands Dans Theater and the Rambert Dance Company.

The answer lies in the hard work of dance professionals promoting their cause north of the Border, with a good 20 years spent laying the foundations of a fertile dance culture. This toil has borne fruit in a new generation of fans who flock to watch both big-name professionals and small homegrown companies alike.

Once a nation that liked its dancing men in tights, we now adore Baryshnikov in his boiler suit, strutting his stuff with a set of ladders. We watch unfazed as a lone female from his White Oak Dance project sits on a stool with a wire basket on her head, stuffing her mouth with washing up sponges and foam hair rollers.

Oh and just when we thought we were safe, he has brought out a DVD. Review from The Guardian.

Quote:

Flamenco has enjoyed an enormous surge of international popularity over the last couple of years, but Joaquin Cortes has come closer than anyone to redefining it as the new rock'n'roll. A former member of the Spanish National Ballet, Cortes fuses traditional flamenco dance moves with a classical dancer's versatility, and also injects a huge amount of his own theatrical personality.

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